When One Goes Missing
by Fiercest
Summary: Neither one has been a Stark in years. Sansa has been a Lannister, a bastard and a coward. Arya has lost track of all her faces. And still, across the vastness of their estrangement, the many traveled miles and the pain, they recognize each other immediately, as only sisters can. - POSTSERIES. Conjecture and speculation ahead.
1. Chapter One: Arya I, Sansa I, Jon I

When One Goes Missing

Chapter One

_ARYA_

No One sat up on her cot with a sudden jerk, which tore her from the realm of sleep.

No One took a few deep breaths and like every day before, she forgot Someone.

No One then proceeded to go about her day.

She went out into the world and learned more than three new things. There hadn't been a sighting of Others in Westeros for a year. The Salt Wife had been found murdered in her sleep.

And a deserter of the Nightswatch sat two barstools away.

She wore no false face when she followed him to his room and drove Needle down his throat. He made a loud gurgling sheath, but she didn't retract her sharpened gift until the blood stopped flowing and began to dry on her fingers.

She sat in her cell cleaning her fingernails, trying to forget Someone. She scraped the brown flecks and ground them into the stone with the heel of her boot. She tried to remember that she was No One.

This wasn't the first of the Nightswatch to escape to Braavos. It was a port on the way to the Free Cities and the laws of Westeros did not apply there. This man was neither the first to escape nor the first of which she'd killed. There had been at least twelve, increasing in number every year.

No One was not Ned Stark's daughter. She wasn't the person meant to enforce the laws of the north. She knew no Old Gods, or their ways. She cared for no laws of men. Only the God of Many Faces and the gift she'd been chosen to give. And yet she killed the deserters all the same.

No One should have no loyalties or affiliations to anyone else, and yet the knife came down again and again all the same.

Angry with herself, she smashed the cup of water against the wall. A hollow clang echoed out into the corridor and down the dark, dank hall. She seethed and raged, kicking at the cot and the walls, wishing she didn't know why this one was different.

The man she'd killed was younger than her. Enough years had passed that 'men' of the Nightswatch, the men responsible for the protection of the Seven Kingdoms were able to be her junior. Old enough to have joined and run away.

And here she was hiding.

Growing up had been a nebulous concept to Arya Stark all her life. It was a wispy gossamer maybe-one-day leaking in the fog of the future. It was something to be left to later, when she had time.

She was a woman grown now, flowered.

It has been ten long years since Arya Stark has been allowed to own to that name. She has been many things since then: Arry, Weasel, Nymeria, Salty, Cat of the Canals, Beth the Beggar Girl, Ugliness personified in and out, acolyte, taker-of-life, giver-of-death. She has worn a hundred faces, stretched taught over the skin she was born with, covering it up, hiding it beneath truer masks.

Eventually she learned to change her features at will, no longer must she wear the lives of those long dead, whose faces were stripped from bodies whose gift had been received. No longer must she feel their pain.

No longer must she feel.

But she does nonetheless, though she knows she must not. The kindly man who always seemed to see right through her as a child either grew lax, or she had feared his wisdom naively.

The older she grows, the more she realizes how little the men around her know.

The kindly man could see her no better than Gendry, Sansa or anyone else.

Arya reclaims herself in secret. She takes her name and keeps it close to her chest, writing it in her heart and etching it in her mind, because it could be so very easy to forget again.

She knows that she must find her way home.

And so Arya Underfoot learned everything she could, accumulating knowledge in much the same way beggars collect groats and pennies. Except no one could steal her knowledge once taken. Knowledge can only be misplaced with carelessness.

Once, she had blindly learned to see without eyes; deafly she learned to hear without ears. She learned to speak in the languages of the isles, in the Old Tongues long disused, in the clunky lingo of Summerland slavers. She learned to move through shadows.

She learned to disappear.

One day she disappears from the House of Black and White, when they have nothing left to teach her.

On her last night in the temple the kindly man says to her, "Who are you?" He hasn't asked in years, so she thinks maybe he must know. Maybe he has always known. Maybe she had not been mistaken in thinking that this man who served all gods and men could see right through to her shriveled deadened core; to the angry black hole of fury, fire and cold that took the place of her heart once upon a horseback as she was carried away from a Wedding-made-Funeral. Or perhaps it was as she clung to a pillar watching her father's head roll across the floor that it dropped out of her chest and fell down in the dirt at her feet.

Maybe it's selfish to leave. She's taken things from them; their time and knowledge. Two things they can never steal back. But Arya Stark stopped caring about anyone but herself a very long time ago.

It takes 10,000 hours to master a skill, it is said. She spent 87,600 or so hours with the god of many faces, but she's spent her life learning ferocity and anonymity.

Crossing the sea is easy work when one's face changes with the tides. She can be anything. And while once she had wished the gods had made her a man, she feels a sort of satisfaction that these days she can make it so. There is a sense of accomplishment at cheating them at their own game of creation.

She steps off the gangway into what was once Lannisport.

It has been ten years, Winter has come and gone, but then again, Winter is always coming. There is no one left to know her face and so she wears her own and no one else's. She tries to remember to be glad of that- there is yet work to be done-but she finds that's harder than it should be.

Arya Stark finds the world very different than when she stepped out of it. She'd left the Seven Kingdoms as they were being torn apart and asunder.

She returns to a world of peace.

Daenerys Targaryen sits upon the Iron Throne, dragons rule the skies; dark shrouds of shadow upon the land, reminders of darker times.

_Ser Ilyn Ser Meryn Ser Dunsen Raff the Sweetling Queen Cersei_

All dead, while Arya had waited half a lifetime to deal the blows.

She thinks it a little unfair and wonders how she could have expected any different. Satisfaction has been something denied to her since childhood, why should her ultimate absolution be any different.

She had waited so long…

SANSA

There must always be a Stark in Winterfell, but the woman whose seat it is, is no Stark at all. She is many things, but not that. Thrice married, twice to the same man, Sansa has been countless things in the intervening years but not one of them has been a Stark, and not one of them has ever been happy.

Daenerys Targaryen is an impressive woman. She is what Sansa thinks her sister might have been if she'd lived: fierce and fiery, quick to anger, but not witless. The older she gets the more she can see what Arya once knew to be Truth; there is no god but death, no master but oneself, no destiny but what one makes for herself. Sansa spends her twilights among the heart trees nonetheless. She is a friend to the beautiful queen, as much a friend as any queen may ever really have. As much a friend as any Lannister may be.

For that is what she is these days. Lady Sansa Lannister of Casterly Rock and Winterfell; though in name only. For she has not been to her family's seat for a long time. Her place is with her husband, and a Hand's place is beside his sovereign.

It is the other Hand she worries for these days.

Jon Snow is Dany's Left and is more Stark than she, though the name can never belong to him. He is Blood and Fire and Ice through and through. Rheagal's lord and master. The Third Head.

Jon Targaryen is the unfamiliar name he now bears. A scion of two houses, only one of which can claim him.

Sansa would have given anything not to be the last, to give over the lordship, to have a brother once again; for she had not had one in so long that she'd forgotten what it was like. It was what her father would have wanted.

But Daenerys Targaryen is not someone who can be denied.

So Sansa does not call him brother, though she wishes she could. She'd taken great pain in her childhood to correct people who thought otherwise. He was her _half brother_. And now he was not even that. She regrets it all very much now. She regrets a great deal these days.

Sansa is the last. The only.

And there are no Starks left in Winterfell.

JON

Jon loves many people. He loves his queen, he loves Maester Samwell, and he even loves the gruff Bear who is his old Lord's son and Lord Commander of the Queensguard. He loves his sister-who-is-not-his-sister.

Sometimes there is so much relief that bubbles up in Jon that he can't breathe and his lungs never seem to run out of air to exhale.

Other times he remembers.

He remembers his brothers upon the wall who betrayed him and _died_ when it crumbled about their ears.

He remembers his father who died leading the best example he could.

He remembers Bran and Rickon, who died too early.

He remembers Robb and how _he_ died and what he died for. And sometimes he misses him most of all.

That is, until he remembers that Arya could be anywhere in the world.

More than all his other siblings Arya Underfoot understood him best. She too felt outcast from the rest, in skin that belonged not to her, in circumstances too contrary to her spirit. Life had teased him with not-quite glimpses of her. None true.

"_Where is my sister?!"_

And maybe his decision had been made then, when he stopped valuing his brothers above one little girl who turned out not to be of his blood at all. And yet it mattered not, his vows mattered less. Importance was placed highest on a child he'd handed a sword as a parting gift.

A child he had been waiting to be returned to him ever since their parting.

And maybe he was still waiting. Maybe he just couldn't bring himself to give up.

Jon would wait forever, and whenever she returned it would not be as a child. So he mourned what she was and waited with forever-baited breath for what she must now be.


	2. Chapter Two: Arya II, Jon II, Arya III

**A/n: Wow, you guys are kind of the bomb. And by kind of, I mean you totally are. I am so out of practice when it comes to writing, so I'd love any constructive critique you can offer, because I want to make this good. And without further ado…**

When One Goes Missing

Chapter Two

_ARYA_

_x_

Arya finds Lady Sansa at court.

She lurks for days before determining that it isn't the smell of danger that permeates the Red Keep, but her own apprehension lingering in her nostrils.

She drops to the ground in front of the woman, startling the beauty into a shriek. How well guarded could this place possibly be when no one can hear you scream?

Neither sister has been a Stark in years.

Sansa has been a Lannister, an Alayne, a coward.

Arya has lost track of all her faces.

And yet still, across the vastness of their estrangement, the many travelled miles and the sands of pain in their hourglasses, they recognize each other immediately, as only sisters can.

_JON_

_x_

Jon trailed at the back of the hunting party with Tyrion. He had no desire to chase the fox through the thicket and much preferred the imps company to the competitive jeers of the court's knights. Let Jorah have his fun; he needed no aid from the hands of the Queen to impede it.

Once, Jon had suspected resentment on the Lord Commander Mormont's part. For Dany had not known him long before extending her hand in grace and friendship, offering a dragon in her palm. The short while where the idea of marriage to the beautiful Queen was contemplated were the most frightening of his life. It was not enough that he was a Targaryen, that he was a Stark, that he was his liege lord, banisher, possessor of his father's sword, that he was one of the Dragon's Three Heads… Now he would be offered the chance to consort with the woman he loved?

There were many restless nights until the decision- which was not his own –was made.

It had been many years since his first dealings with the company from across the narrow sea and it had been almost as long that he was able to call himself the Lord Commander's friend. He was glad of it. The Bear made a greater ally than enemy.

"You seem very lost in thought these days Lord Bastard."

"You seem anxious to pick a fight these days Lord Halfman."

"Your sweet sister worries, and so I thought it my place to antagonize. As you know, it is what I do best." He wrinkled his face oddly, the way a person with a nose would wrinkle theirs.

"Sansa is always worrying, it is her nature," Jon replied sadly, thinking of the scarred young woman, waiting in the keep.

Tyrion chuckled and urged his horse forward, passing Jon's. He shook his head in amusement and called to him casually over his shoulder. "I speak of your half-sister, not of my Lady Wife."

Jon forgets sometimes, despite the years of settling into the idea, that they are not a family. They never _were_ a family. He never blamed her for her distance in Winterfell, but there was no kinship between them. That is, not until they came to King's Landing. It is strange, he thought some days, how people could latch onto ideas and feelings, no more true than Old Nan's wildest stories, and refuse to let them go.

"Old habits," he explained.

"Of course. Understandeable." Once satisfied that Jon was stable, Tyrion pulled back his steed to trot beside him again. "I have been a friend to you Jon. Not a very good one, but then again I have not had much practice. There are not many who befriend Imps and Lannisters. I have the unlucky fate as to be born both."

"Are you playing the pity card with me?"

"My friend, a man lacking in your brawn must use what few weapons in his arsenal he can. However, you are mistaken. I am merely explaining my less than admirable qualities."

"Sansa speaks highly enough of you that I can forgive most of them."

Jon could not be sure, but he thought that perhaps Tyrion were blushing.

_ARYA_

_x_

Arya waited. And waited.

And waited.

The sun crept closer to the horizon, laying itself down to sleep. It shone over the tips of the trees and reflected off the glass of the tower windows in her view. She didn't see how this was a good idea in any way. She had kept to the shadows so long she'd almost forgotten what one does when they meet new people.

What does one say to the conquering Queen of Westeros?

The door opened and in entered a creature of beauty, grace and suspicion. Sansa followed in her wake, a meek little shadow.

"Your Grace," long dormant habits awakened in Arya. She curtsied, and halfway through realized what she was doing and gave pause. '_What in the world?'_

"You have come a long way, I am told."

"From Braavos."

"From the Faceless Men."

Arya shot Sansa a look and vowed to tell her no more. A secret kept by her sister was as good as a royal announcement apparently. At her look Sansa colored in shame. _'Perhaps she had not realized',_ Arya thought of her, generously.

"I have been many places and seen many things since my father died." Since everything changed.

"I am very sorry for your ordeal." While not insincere, the sentiment did not feel comforting.

"Thank you," she replied tersely.

"Of course, Your Grace. Whatever you wish to know. It is my duty to tell you anything you wish to hear." But not the truth. Arya had been careful with the truth for a very long time. She knew how the game was played now and she was willing. She would be polite and well spoken; the very model of a perfect lady. It need not be for long after all.

"Perhaps you will begin your tale tonight. You will dine with me in my chambers. Sansa," her sister glanced up from her contemplation of the toes of her red satin shoes. "You will join me as well of course. I wouldn't dream of parting you from your sister so soon after finding each other."

With a nod of her head, a reciprocated bow from both Stark women, Daenerys took her leave.

Sansa held out her hand, which Arya took awkwardly.

"You look as if you've been living in the forest."

"I have, I arrived at Lannisport-"

"New Port," the older woman corrected absently.

"I arrived at _New Port_, two moons ago."

The hand she'd been holding was wrenched from her grasp when Sansa whirled on her, tiny, sweet and looking fiercely angry, "And it took you so long to come to us?"

"Who is 'us' Sansa? We are the _only_ ones left. I was learning, I have been gone a long time. I know about Robb, Theon, Bran and Rickon. And Jon. Or Aegon, or whatever he goes by, whoever he is. It is just you and I now.

"Arya-"

"Not now," she shushed her severely and pulled her out the door insistently. She ignored all attempts to dissuade her pace. In another time, another season, perhaps she would have said something nasty, but there were no brothers to hide behind, mother to deal out punishments, or father to complain to. There was only Sansa and all the love that Arya had pushed down deep inside herself; rising up to engulf her, with no focus but the sweet, silly girl who was now a woman she did not know.

They tread the familiar path to the godswood, where no one but the Old Gods could hear them. It was only then that Arya found herself able to look into Sansa's eyes and pour her frantic thoughts into her hands before they slipped through her fingers all together.

She took a breath and retreated into well tread territory.

"It's going to be alright." Arya could not stop looking at Sansa's face. She was just as beautiful, just as untouchably perfect as she'd always remembered her. She carried a sweet sadness in her posture and gait. Her watery blue eyes were wiser and older in ways her body and face were not. She was watching her with eagle's eyes as if she might disappear. "I'm going to get us out of this. We'll go north and then across the Narrow Sea, we'll be safe there. I've learned things while I've been gone, I have…a certain set of skills that make me uniquely qualified to disappear. I can take you with me. We can leave this place and never come back. You don't have to be the queens pawn, or the Lannisters' brood mare anymore."

"Tyrion is-"

"A Lannister." Arya stressed, trying to make her see her point. Dread took root and grew in her heart with every moment that passed.

"My husband."

"Against your will!"

"He is good to me."

"Relatively speaking, maybe. Please, Sansa, you must see that it is best for us to go. We don't have to be part of the game anymore."

"The game is over, Queen Danaerys has won."

"The game is _never_ over."

**A/n: **Don't forget to leave a review and let me know what you think!

-Fiercy


	3. Chapter Three: Sansa II,Arya IV, Jon III

CHAPTER THREE

_SANSA II_

x

_Oh Arya._

What could have happened to her? She may be all grown up now, but it appeared that Arya was still a scared little girl. This was a strange thing to understand, considering the child she had known; energetic, boyish and fearless. But maybe that wasn't the truth, was it? Having changed much since she had left Winterfell for the first time, Sansa realized what she could not have back then. It was not fearlessness which her sister possessed. Arya was always afraid; was constantly worrying about how she might die, what might happen, who she could trust. Her fear did not manifest the way Sansa's did. It was a violent thing, the sort that acted out against all besiegers. Arya's fear pushed her to act where others would cower.

Arya's fear was dangerous.

"These are good people. The best we could hope for."

"The benevolent Queen who deigns to bestow upon you her company? Who burned the country to the ground? Who is as crazed as the Mad King?"

"Wars are not won without blood and fire."

"Is that what they told you? Don't be stupid."

Sansa pursed her lips and took a deep breath to collect herself. If she was not careful Arya might leave again, and then she would have no hope of finding her. "You shouldn't believe everything you hear," she cautioned, "what does a sailor know of the wars in Westeros.? The common folk; of the agreements between lords and their lieges? For someone who has seen so much of the world you are very gullible."

She realized as soon as she said it that it was absolutely the worst thing she could have said, but she waited with baited breath for what she would do. It occurred to her that she no longer knew the woman. She had lived an entire life away from her, spent more years apart than together.

_ARYA IV_

x

Sansa's speech gave her pause. She had learned to learn and to make tools of her knowledge. She had never thought to parse these things for more than lies, for misrememberings or rumors. Lies were one thing, mistakes were another. People were fallible, but the truths of the world were not. It was always easy to believe in the slights of men.

Perhaps Sansa was not so stupid after all.

"You won't let me take you with me?" she was imploring her now. Regardless of their sovereign's sanity and the cruelty, or the lackthereof in the imp, the best place for them was somewhere where no one knew the Starks of Winterfell; where no one knew their names. It was far easier to be No One.

"I stopped running and hiding long ago. It is time you did the same." Sansa declared in her haughty way, "Please stay." She faltered and embraced her tightly. The bone of her cheek pressed into Arya's neck and she squeezed as tightly as her dainty lady's arms could.

"Let me save you," Arya begged.

"Let us save you."

"There is no 'us', Sansa." Her eyes burned and she hugged her sister back, bruising. _And I don't need to be saved._

"There is."

She wouldn't give up.

_JON III_

x

Eventually the hunt ended with the capture of the autumn colored creature and the deep bellied laughs of the courtly attendants. This signaled the welcome return to the city.

What Jon desperately wanted was some time in the training yard and a hot bath. He was itching to get off his horse and on to more productive things.

It seemed, with the way he subtly rubbed his rump that Tyrion agreed.

Jon still felt out of place in gatherings such as this one; official excursions of the royal sort. For most of his life he'd been a bastard. He supposed he still was, by some definitions, but he had never been invited on hunts, to balls or feasts, to sample wine and dine with great Houses. It was odd how once he had been less than invisible to these people, but now had been raised above them. He had a hand in ruling the Seven Kingdoms. Jon Snow. Aegon Targaryen.

He sighed and slid from his steed. He stumbled a little at his landing and wondered if maybe a hot bath would be the wiser course to take first.

"Welcome back," Dany said with a smile and languorous wave of her hand. "I trust you enjoyed yourselves."

"Very much, Your Grace," Jorah graveled, eyeing her from toe to eyes.

Jon suddenly felt like he should be anywhere but between the Bear and the Maiden Fair and tried to subtly communicate this to his fellow Hand. But then Sansa stepped out from behind the queen with the most enormous grin on her face. She rushed at him and reflexive caught her arms when she all but barreled into him.

"My Lady-" "Arya-" they exclaimed at the same moment.

"What?" there were tears in Sansa's eyes. He gripped her shoulders as strongly as she did his arms. "Is she-?"

'_Where is my sister?!'_

"She's come back."

x-x-x

He shared Sansa's excitement, and her tears. There was so much to be happy about in that moment that he cared not that his Queen's attention has fallen upon him.

"Perhaps it will be a larger dinner party than I first thought," he heard her murmur to the Lord Commander.

Arya.

Arya Arya Arya.

Sansa said she was in her chambers, eating. It had been a long journey she said, she's tired she said. And there was so much that she _wasn't_ saying that Jon was genuinely frightened of the person he was about to find. His fear did not stay his steps, however. It did not slow his breakneck pace as he barreled through the castle in a manner most inappropriate for a man of his station. Urgency clawing at whatever area of his brain contained _reason,_ prevented him from caring.

He did not knock, which was most improper, but he didn't know he had done it until he was faced with a woman of twenty trying to shove an entire mutton pie into her mouth at once.

"Jraw." She exclaimed. Food particles flew from her lips. She swallowed heavily and hiccupped violently. "Jon."

He sat down and took a piece of bread.

"Wait," she said, "I haven't checked the rolls yet."

"Checked them for what?"

She shook her head. "Just don't eat it yet."

Long silence. Permeated by a solitary hiccup.

Together they laughed. "Food in New Port is not nearly this good and it has been a while since I have had a face that needed to worry about manners."

This confused him greatly.

"Don't start on my account. Where have you been? What has happened to you?"

"Braavos," she replied simply, wiping her face on her sleeve. "There is a great deal that has happened to me."

"Me as well," he smiled ironically.

"I can see that," she gestured to his necklace of golden hands with a turkey leg. "I have plenty of time to hear all about it until Her Grace demands for me to talk myself hoarse."

"Where would you like me to start?"

"Well," Arya paused and picked off the tiniest piece of a roll, smelled it and chewed it slowly before offering it to him and taking another to go through the process again. "Last I heard of you was from a fat man at a tavern. He said you were Lord Commander of the wall. How does the brother of the Watch who has sworn the most oaths bring himself to take lands and titles?"

He supposed if he had actually thought to any degree about what it would be like to have her back, he would have seen her scorn and argumentativeness coming. He chose to ignore it for the sake of expediency.

"How often did you get news of Westeros?"

"Depended upon the year. When I first arrived not much, the usual things one hears on trade routes, but then brothers of the watch began to show up, more every year. At one point news stopped all together. No one came or went."

"During the war we cut off all trade routes."

She scowled. "We. Of course."

He looked at his reflection in the silver spoon and like every time before he found a stranger's face there. Still his, but of different coloring. His white gold hair curled at his neck, his eyes were a clouded purple, almost grey. He touched his stomach where a cut slashed a birthmark and the disguise that had kept him safe since infancy had dropped. Magic was a great and terrible power, but it had hidden Aegon Targaryen in Winterfell and kept him from Robert Baratheon's fury.

"I am glad you're back."

"Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle [1]."

"I had thought you would have forgotten."

She shrugged. "I was No One for a very long time. Some things stay with you I suppose and reawaken clearer once remembered."

"Don't say that, you matter," Jon earnestly tried to find the words that could communicate how much he wished he could have protected her. How he wished he had found her.

They had been outcasts together at Winterfell; no longer. He was a prince, after a fashion, and he supposed if there were anyone who would think less of him for that it would be her.

"Everyone matters, some more than others," she stared pointedly, asperity in her tone, "But in order to learn what I needed to learn I couldn't be anyone. I had to stop being Arya Stark."

He was almost afraid to ask. "And what have you learned?"

Grey eyes looked at him over the rim of a goblet, which obscured the rest of her face. For a moment she paused with it at her lips and set it down. An upturned nose dusted with freckles took the place of her pert nose with the bump in it from a break. Soft red lips replaced her chapped ones. Her cheekbones were more prominent, her mouth; less wide. Besides the color of the hair and eyes a completely different person sat across the table. Even the shape of them seemed different; narrower and almond shaped.

He jerked back in shock and stared with his mouth agape. It took a moment for him to settle into this new knowledge. He as a man who had faced giants and Others. He could face Arya Underfoot. It was only Arya afterall… but looking at her he wasn't so sure. "What else can you do?"

She retreated, into silence and into her own face. "A great many things. Most not appropriate for polite company," she joked.

'_Where is my sister!?_ '

He still wondered.

x-x-x

**A/n: **[1] Jon says this to Arya before she leaves Winterfell, when she tells him she wishes he were coming with her.

Small error: I refered to Jon as Dany's half brother, when no matter his origin, he would actually be her nephew. My bad.

Arya apparently did not skip the teenage wangst phase, just delayed it a little.

The way I see it, she is a very flawed individual with a lot of anger and no one to righteously direct it at. She's exploring what it means to be a person after so long being no one. And it is sooo much fun to write.

Don't forget to tell me what you think!

-Fiercy


	4. Chapter Four: Sansa III, Jon & new POV!

**A/n: Two updates in one week! Huzzah!**

CHAPTER FOUR

x

_SANSA III_

x

Sansa went to bed with an uneasy queasiness in the pit of her stomach. Everything was supposed to be alright now. Life was supposed to be perfect with her only family back. There would be arguments and laughter, pranks and antagonizing. She was supposed to be happy, but she wasn't.

"My Lady," Tyrion rolled over to face her, though she had thought he had been asleep and had undressed by the light of one feeble candle. "Is something the matter?"

"Not at all My Lord," she demurred and lay beside him. "It has been a long day."

"I don't know why you always choose to prevaricate when something bothers you, you will tell me eventually and it is really rather tiresome and distracting, trying to figure it out in the meantime."

"I don't know what you mean."

"I suppose it must have nothing to do with the Lady Arya returning from the dead." He smirked in his knowing way and pressed the issue. "Very different from the nuisance you remember. Tragedy and distance have a way of making you forget how things truly were and remember them however it will make you feel better. I, for instance, chose to forget better parts of Jaime so that I could leave in relative peace." He sighed dramatically, "Now he is dead and only now can I remember him for what he was."

"What a beastly thing to say," said Sansa, pulling the covers up over her smile. She was used to Tyrion and his humors. "You think I'm doing that to Arya."

"I think that you don't like that you never got along, so you are overcompensating. And that, My Sweet, is not going to change that she is a very damaged soul. You cannot fix her."

"I can try," she proclaimed stubbornly. "It worked with Jon."

"Ah Jon, we come to the root of it."

"Arya will say things to him that she won't to me, and she doesn't even trust him. What does that say about what she feels for me?"

"Most people will say things to Jon that they won't to you; myself included." She gasped, insulted. "It has to do with Jon's nature, not yours."

"It isn't just how I'm choosing to remember her. I know we fought, I know that some days we hated each other. She is just so…empty. And stern. She will refuse to be happy here and when Arya refuses to do something I'm not sure I will have the strength to fight her."

"I think you will surprise yourself." He leaned over her and blew out the lingering candle beside the bed then sprawled out on his pillow. "Goodnight Silly Girl."

"Goodnight Tyrion." She pressed a kiss to his cheek, which warmed beneath her lips, and tried to lie still.

Thoughts and worries whirled around her head, making her dizzy. She wondered what she would do if Arya gave up on her and decided to leave. Should she try to stop her? Should she tell Jon of her plan? Arya truly thought that Sansa was a prisoner in King's Landing, but that was no longer true. She had built a life around her circumstances and was content with it.

She was living where Arya could not remain; in the south, where their lives turned to ash. What would she do here? Live like a lady? She never wanted that, even before. What place could she find for her lost little sister in the realm that tore their family apart?

_JON IV_

x

Jon returned to his chambers later than expected. He had gone for a walk after supper and had been lost in thought ever since. The torches in the corridor were burning low, signaling the lateness of the hour. There was no life to be heard in the castle besides the even stride of his footsteps.

He hummed a song to the beat of his tapping feet, an old one that Dolorous Ed had taught him. It was some ballad about a beautiful woman. He didn't remember much else about it except for one line. 'Rough around the edges but smooth and cool as ice'. He liked that bit. It went on to describe all sorts of contradictions; some flattering, some not. Some were funny, some were sad. It was a welcome change from the lewd bar songs that many of his other brothers sang.

Up the stairs to the new tower of the Hand, two at a time. While he refused his mind its continued restlessness, his body did not seem to feel like complying with the edict.

He opened the door and immediately drew his sword.

"Careful, the end is pointy." A shadow in the center of the room spoke.

Ghost burst forward.

"Arya!" he exclaimed and immediately sheathed the blade. The massive Direwolf, once the runt of the litter, dwarfed the young woman. He licked her face in his excitement, leaving saliva slicking her cheek. "What are you doing here?"

"I just came from supper with your Queen." She flopped down on his bed and made herself at home while eating an apple. Ghost took this as a sign that he was allowed on the bed as well and bunked down behind her like a giant fluffy pillow. "She saw me testing my food and insisted I do it for hers too." For poison. As he had suspected she was doing earlier. "I think she might be a bit mad."

"Treasonous thoughts." _And hypocritical._

"Oh be quiet Jon, it's just you and I." She reached up and scratched her hair, contemplating him. "May I ask about the hair? And about your mother? As you've said, common-folk stories may not be reliable. Do you have a dragon like they say?"

"His name is Rhaegal." He sat down beside her and she sat up properly. "We aren't entirely sure who I am. It was discovered that Rhaegar married Lyanna Stark, so it is assumed that I am a product of that. His harp was found in her tomb. Daenerys seems to think that I am the true Aegon, though what gave her that idea, I am unsure."

"I'm beginning to see who this 'we' and 'us' business is coming from."

"What?"

"Nevermind that. And Daenerys; you trust her?"

He thought for a moment. "She is kind, and wiser than she is given credit for."

"I give her all the credit she deserves, worry not about that." Arya frowned and looked down at the half eaten apple. "But I do not trust her."

"Trust me," he did not know what was going through her head, but he could guess. He could see the instinct to flee trembling in her fidgeting feet.

"How can I?"

"You came here. You must still remember how. You would not have come back if you did not trust we would be waiting for you."

"That is another matter altogether. You were not waiting for me; you were living your lives in the place that I left you. That is not the same thing."

"We were waiting," he promised, trying to assure her without scaring her with the intensity of that truth. He waited far longer than he should have for the Red Woman's prophecy to come true.

_ARYA V_

x

Being a lady is the thing that Arya has least excelled at in all her life. Even in Winterfell when her mother would tell her that she could never be a knight "_but your sons may be, or perhaps even lords of their own lands." _She told her as if that was something to be proud of; as if the questionable existence of future children would validate her life somehow. The best she had been led to believe she could hope for was to have a husband who would be absent enough that she would be mistress of her own days.

While that was all well and good for a girl like Sansa or Jeyne Poole, Arya knew her destiny lay elsewhere. The gods could not have made her a superior fighter to Bran in every way for nothing, could they?

She pulled at the bodice of the borrowed ill-fitting gown and thought of her brothers for the millionth time since she had come back. She missed them terribly, she knew they must now be dead but wondered how that could be if she hadn't dreamed it?

The more time she spent forgetting herself, the sparser the dreams of Nymeria became. Upon embarking on her journey home they had returned with full force, clearer than ever before. She was glad to have never truly lost the connection, but the ache she felt sometimes in her beloved direwolf's body was palpable. While she had been no one had she missed the deaths of the others of her pack? Her brothers and sisters on four legs were felt no more than her dead human brothers.

Nymeria was near a river somewhere stopped with ice. In the midst of summer she knew that could only be north of Winterfell but she couldn't shake the feeling that perhaps she would see her soon.

A breeze rustled her long loose hair. She should cut it, it was becoming cumbersome. The thought broke her from her reverie and caused her to pay attention to her surroundings. She was in the entryway of the training yard, young squires were at work jabbing away at each others' wooden shields. It was pathetic, but it made her positively itch.

She was almost Jon's height. If she asked one of the servants for a belt, she was sure he wouldn't mind her borrowing breeches and a tunic for a little exercise.

_DAENERYS I_

X

One of Dany's favorite things to do was watch her sworn protectors in the training yard. Jorah had trained her knights well, Strong Belwas was always a sight to behold; though more vicious than practice would normally warrant. It was exactly what she imagined, growing up. The romantic idea of men striving for strength, fighting their allies so they may eviscerate their enemies. She exhaled heavily and a content smile played across her lips.

There was a balcony that jutted out above the yard that boasted a perfect view. It was her favorite place to sit with the egg from beneath Dragonstone.

Jorah was training new recruits today. Most were scions of middle houses, some from higher birth. One towered above the others, a solid, towering but slender boy with his hair pulled back in a long braid. He was either much older than the others or possessed incredible potential.

He was the one who Jorah chose to demonstrate some technique.

The boy stepped out of line, tossed his shield to the side and slid into a sure-footed form, with his sword hand in front. The blade was perfectly parallel to the ground and his arm did not so much as twitch. He stayed that way until the Bear told him otherwise.

He called up another squire and gestured for him to attack. The boy hesitated. More gesturing and urging, until he stepped forward. He leapt into a jab, which the taller boy smacked down without trouble. His sword clattered to the ground. He picked it up and tried again and again, each time unarmed by the clear superior. Eventually he got frustrated and began a barrage of attacks, each was dodged or dispelled in short work.

"Well done Lady Arya," said Jorah. He tossed her the wooden shield she had dropped, which she caught with ease. "Perhaps that will teach you all to never underestimate an enemy."

_Interesting._

_TYRION I_

x

"What is this huge fuss about one woman?" Tyrion wondered aloud when Jon excused himself for the second meeting in as many days.

Queen Daenerys, Jorah Mormont, Grand Maester Candor, Grey Worm, Lorenz Tyrell. What little comprised their small council looked up at the Hand's muttering with varied expressions of amusement, annoyance, boredom and in Grey Worm's case; stoicism.

He massaged his temples and prayed to find a Master of Coin to care for their coffers before he went insane. While he was at it; Masters of Ships, Laws and Whispers wouldn't hurt.

He scratched his scar and collected himself. "That was not a rhetorical question, if someone could explain it to me I would be most thrilled."

Sansa too, was absent more often than not lately. And yet Arya Stark always seemed in a foul humor. Then again, the hard lines of Eddard Stark's face did no favors for a woman's beauty and softness and perhaps that was just the way she looked.

"Their sister has come back from the dead."

"I myself would be thrilled if Cersei were to return from the dead. It would allow me the chance to kill her myself, instead of Jaime," said Tyrion.

"Jon has no sister," said Daenerys.

The awkward silence that followed was unmatched.

"Shall we get on with the business of the Tourney?"

x-x-x

"Shall I joust for you My Lady Wife?" he joked in the face of Sansa's excitement, "I shall wear your favor and fight as valiantly as I did against Penny the Dwarf in Essos."

"Don't be cheeky, tournaments are wonderful and exciting!"

"And bloody."

"Well yes, but everyone is in such good humor-"

"Because of all the ale charged to the crown and not their pockets."

"And the food is delicious and sweet."

"Because of which, we eat ourselves sick."

Her lips twitched, "Only if you drink more than your share of that ale. What has you in such ill spirits?"

"I am Master of Coin once again, and our overprotective friend is shirking his responsibilities in favor of dealing with _your sister's_ asinine anger."

"Sometimes I wonder if she'd rather be left alone."

Tyrion groaned. "No. No more. I will have no more talk of Arya Stark, I have tired of hearing it. If you wish to discuss her at all, you may go in search of the Lord Bastard and exhaust your tongues together."

"Whatever will please you, My Lord Husband," she agreed with a laugh.

"Do not mock me, so."

_Sometimes it's hard; her being this beautiful._

Wound around her little finger, he only then realized that he should object more.

x-x-x

**A/n: Dany has her first POV! Don't know how often a recurring thing this will be, but we'll see. Silly wangsty Jon is almost done being a whiny angsty mess, don't you lovelies worry!**

**There may be one more update before I get into uni exam season, which may mean there will be a couple weeks with none at all, but don't you worry your pretty little heads! I'll be back in time to bring holiday cheer all around.**

**Don't forget to leave a review telling me what you think!**

**Fiercy**


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